WASP & HORNET PREVENTION TIPS

Summer is a fun season filled with sunshine, gorgeous weather, and lots of outdoor fun.  It also feels like it passes by way too fast, which is why people try to get out and enjoy every single second of it.

There are certain pests that can spoil summer fun by making people worried about going outside, which can prevent them from enjoying a simple relaxing day in their backyard. These pests are wasps & hornets. Visit our common pest library to learn about the most common types of wasps & hornets we deal with here in southern Ontario.

Wasps & hornets are summer pests that grow in population as summer progresses. By late summer, colonies can be enormous in size, and active nests around structures like homes, cottages, businesses, sheds, garages, play structures and trees, can be swarming with buzzing insects that have the potential to be very aggressive and sting. These nests could have been started in early summer and not dealt with early on for a variety of reasons – they went unnoticed, were put out of mind because there is little activity around them, or perhaps the nests were far enough away from the back deck, patio, or entry doors that they are left be since they were not bothersome. Leaving any nest(s) be allows wasp & hornet colonies to grow all summer long and becomes major issues in late summer and early fall when, both outside and even inside a home, business, or cottage.

Below we’ve shared advice and tips from our wasp & hornet pest control experts that will help you enjoy your summer and fall wasp & hornet free!

Tips to Prevent Wasps & Hornets in The Summer & Fall

1. Throughout the summer, regularly check your home, cottage, business, & any structures on your property (shed, garage, play structure, fences, trees, etc.) for active nests (visible & non-visible) AND get these removed or treated quickly. If not dealt with early on in the summer season, the wasp & hornet colonies living inside those nests will continue to grow and become a serious issue in late summer and early fall.
2. If you have an active wasp & hornet on a structure on your property, deal with it right away, even if it is not bothering you at that the time. Leaving it enables the population of wasps & hornets inhabiting it to grow and flourish. By late summer, you’ll have lots of these pests buzzing around your property, and by fall when they go to overwinter, your home, cottage or business is close by and will be very appealing for them to spend winter in. You could end up with dozens of fertilized queen wasps & hornets overwintering in your space.
3. If you have, or suspect you have, a non-visible wasp & hornet nest on the exterior of your home, cottage or business, contact wasp & hornet experts like our team for help.
   • All too often, people take it upon themselves to deal with these types of nests by sealing up the entry points, which actually push the wasp & hornet colony deeper into the structure… and directly into their homes or places of work. Depending on the size of the colony, 100’s of wasps & hornets could invade your space. They can and will chew through drywall and emerge out of walls. They also can come out of light fixtures, vents and even baseboards. Once they emerge indoors, this creates a very challenging issue to resolve, and often the only relief and solution is to continually vacuum them up.
   • If you leave a non-visible nest on your house, cottage, or business untreated, come fall, fertilized queens (possibly dozens of them) will not fly away. Instead, they will crawl deeper inside the nest to overwinter and could end up inside your home, cottage or business come spring. 

We hope you find these tips helpful in making wasps and hornets buzz off so you can enjoy your summer and fall seasons!